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Information on Changelings, capture and escape, the True Fae, Seemings and Kiths, Courts, and Contracts.

Changelings are those who were abducted by the True Fae and taken beyond the Hedge. Having escaped they are now Changelings, forever changed by their ordeal. Players are encouraged to make their characters strange, be it with whimsy or odd behavior as they have difficulty relating with normal people after what they went through.

Current Changelings:

Nao - Darkling Mirrorskin - Autumn Court

Felicia Arcesso - Fairest Dancer - Winter Court

Changelings are no longer human, and yet they still are. Their time in the world of the Others has changed them, creating a hybrid of Human and Fae, making them both and neither. Being part Fae grants them the Mask, a mundane version of themselves viewed by the non-Fae. While other Fae can see the Mein beneath, their true selves, altered by their time and experience while captive. this Seeming is unique to every Changeling, and are as follows:

Beasts - They believe that they have taken the most difficult road back through the Hedge, for they have had to claw back their minds as well as their souls. For a Beast to return, he has to turn his back on the lush sensory life of the animal, and think, if only long enough to burrow, chew and wriggle through the thorny barrier and back to the human realm. No matter what animal he holds an affinity with, a Beast lives in a state of paradox, a conscious, moral person infused with the unconscious, amoral power of the animal kingdom. A Beast's behavior and the place she creates for herself in the world depends a great deal on the kind of animal she reflects. Some stand apart from human society. Some throw themselves into the human world, revealing the wildness and the world of sensation at the heart of human interaction. Some express their connection to the world of sensation in their own, uniquely primal ways. Of all the changelings, the Beasts are the most difficult to categorize. They're as varied in form and behavior as the animals whose essence they share. All of them, however, exist as interstitial figures, living on a threshold between human and animal, civilization and wilderness.
Appearance: A Beast always has some feature belonging to the animal she reflects. It's important to note that the Beast reflects the idea of the animal rather than the animal itself. She might reflect more than one animal. She might reflect (like the archetypal Beast from the folk-tale) a category of animals that don't even exist. They're always very physical and solid, whatever form they take, and many Beasts have a strong odor of some kind.
Contracts: Beasts gain an affinity with the Fang and Talon Contracts, allowing them to take on qualities of animals. They can also specialize in Den Contracts, which grant them a special connection to their territory.

Darklings - Changelings know that their deeds have consequences, but few feel those consequences so keenly as the changelings who are called Darklings. Many were stolen away as the consequence of attracting the attention of the Fae. Their obsessive clinging to the solace of the night is the consequence of having been imbued with shadows. Their love of quiet is the consequence of having lived in a world where all was whispering, all was rustling and snapping twigs and creeping fear. The Darklings believe that they found it hardest to escape from the lands of the Fae, because their way back was hidden from them. Of all the changelings, they were lost in an alien landscape, with no reference point to return to, with all paths shrouded in shadow. To escape, they had to be the ones who could survive in the shadows, to thrive there with creeping things and dark things and dead things that move. Having come back, they are the changelings who wait in the shadows. The Darklings' memories of their time in Faerie are awash with shadowy fears. Vague, hulking forces loomed from the corner of the room. Small skittering things crawled across faces or became momentarily tangled in hair before dissolving. Wet, slithering things moved around in the background. Trap doors and boarded windows with something behind them figure heavily in dreams of Faerie. Being sent on errands with no point, being forced to copy ancient codices of lore that made no sense while outside things shrieked and fluttered, being made to enter a cellar and being eaten, over and over again, being lost in mazes, all of these things feature heavily in Darkling dreams of faerie. The dark places of the human world don't remotely compare.
Appearance: Darklings tend to appear somehow less solid, less substantial than other changelings. It's not that they're transparent or anything. They just feel less solid somehow. Many (but not all) are thin, in their fae miens unnaturally so. Many are tall, and the ones who aren't are only shorter than normal because they're hunched over. Some have pointed ears and noses. Some have straight, lank hair. Skin runs the gamut from deathly white to transparent, shadowy black or blue. Their eyes are almost always dark, like deep pits that reveal nothing. Sometimes, in their fae miens, they have freakish features, like tiny horns or fangs, extra eyes and the like.
Contracts: Darklings gain an affinity with the Darkness Contracts, allowing them to use darkness as a thing of distraction and fear.

Elementals - While other changelings reflect creatures who, at least on some level, represent human dreams (beauties, horrors, tricksters, animals), the Elemental psyche is influenced by the desires of objects and forces. The Elementals believe that their journey back through the Hedge was harder for them than it was for any of the changelings because they had less reason to escape. Their humanity had been more damaged by what they had endured in the Fae realm. Their memories of Faerie are often difficult to understand. Some know that once, they understood what it was to be a tree, or a stone, or a mound of earth. Some remember being lost to enchantment, becoming a clockwork doll or a lover made of ice. Others recall being lost in an environment now alien to them, perhaps serving as a manservant or maidservant in a flying city of glass or a blazing city made all of brass. Still others found their way into the Hedge on their own, and bear the marks of whatever thorny wasteland they wandered in before being taken to Faerie. Often seen as alien and inhuman, the Elementals are as much a mystery to the other changelings as they are to the humans around them.
Appearance: Every Elemental has something of their element about them. Mostly, that connection shows itself through the texture and color of the skin, through something in the eyes.
Contracts: Elementals gain an affinity with the Elements Contracts, allowing them to manipulate and control the element they embody.

Fairest - The world the Fairest were part of — or as much of it as they remember — was beautiful, a world of sweet pain and exquisite cruelty, a bittersweet paradise. Surrounded by beauty as they were, thralls to creatures a thousand times lovelier than anything on Earth, they had to focus all their thoughts on remembering what it was to be plain, to walk among the ordinary. The Fairest return from the Fae realm as striking, enchanting beings, but with that enchantment they bring back an inhuman cruelty -- a cruelty sometimes magnified by the arrogance that comes from knowing that they were pure enough of heart and strong enough of will to escape the thrall of ecstasy. The Fairest often believe that they should be far more influential and powerful in their Courts than they actually are, mistaking social prowess and ruthlessness for the qualities of leadership. Some manage, by sheer force of personality and charm alone, to rise to the top, but there are more Fairest in positions of authority than there are Fairest who know what they're doing. They push themselves into everything they do, and sometimes their overwhelming charisma is enough to carry an enterprise on its own. Of all the changelings, the Fairest are the least suited to solitude. Though proud and cruel, they are social beings, and when they rise above their shortcomings and let others in, the cruelty that made them can be redeemed.
Appearance: The Fairest are often tall, often slim and always good-looking. They're never really conventionally attractive: instead they're striking, haunting, memorable, and seem to carry themselves with a sublime grace. They're also the changelings who look the most like their fae miens when shrouded by the Mask.
Contracts: The Fairest gain an affinity with the Vainglory Contracts, allowing them to use their beauty and standing as a powerful means of persuasion.

Ogres - Most folklore traditions have stories of trolls, hags, giants and flesh-eaters, and the changeling Ogres more often than not reflect those. Their tragedy is often that as they try to escape the violence that made them, they perpetrate it. Whatever place an Ogre finds in the world, she’ll find that the only way to rise above the brutality that made her what she is to accept it and use it. Of course, there’s a fine line between accepting something and embracing it, a line too many Ogres cross. The Ogres who make it back through the Hedge have to be, more than any other changeling, exceptional people. Not that the Fae are necessarily picky in who they choose to abuse and brutalize: rather, the Ogres are those who managed to survive without being eaten, crippled, or beaten to death and to avoid becoming so much like the monsters that took them that they wouldn’t want to leave. They don’t have to be particularly smart or cunning, but they are the kind of people who know their own mind. Most Ogres have an in-born streak of stubbornness that makes them faithful (if sometimes annoying) companions and terrible enemies.
Appearance: Ogres are always brutish in some way. Some have bestial features (and a few might even be confused with Beasts at first), and many are tall and broad, although by no means all; there are several short Ogres and almost as many skinny ones.
Contracts: Ogres gain an affinity with the Stone Contracts, granting them potent strength and a measure of hardiness.

Wizened - The Wizened may well be the most unfortunate of changelings, for the Wizened could be anyone at all. Many were taken for no reason and through no fault of their own, simply finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unluckier still are those who came to the Others' attention because they encountered one who appeared to be in trouble – like the man who found a little person under a rock and set him free, only to be hounded to death for his presumption that the Fae might need his help. Despite their seeming haplessness, it takes someone as cunning and ingenious as the Fae themselves to escape from the Little People, and so Wizened changelings who return are most often those people who were already nimble of hand and quick of wit. The Wizened bring back disjointed memories of random cruelties, of being the butt of tricks and experiments that seemed hilarious to the Fae, even if they couldn't appeal to any human sense of humor. Many dimly recall trying to escape over and over again, each time being outwitted by their spiteful captors, perhaps at times being allowed to think they had escaped before the fact that they were still in Faerie all along was revealed.
Appearance: While every one of the Wizened is, in some way, smaller than she was when she was taken, they bear the features of the "Little People" in all their infinite variety. Being small often means being short — but not always. Some Wizened are tall and impossibly thin. Some aren't physically smaller than anyone else, but somehow seem smaller, as if they are insubstantial or somehow not quite there. Wizened captured in the West often have pointed ears, deeply lined faces, strangely-shaped noses and gimlet eyes. Often, a Wizened changeling's skin is richly colored, being bright green, red or blue, or the deep rich color and texture of polished mahogany. Their fingers are nimble and bony, and their fingernails are long and sometimes twisted. Some have hunch backs and prominent warts. Some have animal feet. Even to those who can't perceive their Seemings, the Wizened still seem small; that look of somehow not always being present stays with them.
Contracts: The Wizened gain an affinity with the Artifice Contracts, allowing them to repair, improve, and wreck crafted works.

Kiths
The specific form of the Changeling's Mein, it can be considered a extension of subtype of the Seeming.

Beast Kiths:
Broadback: Changelings who are attuned to animals that are renowned for their endurance or stubborness, such as camels, elephants, horses, mules, goats and the like.
Cleareyes: Changelings attuned to creatures known for keen senses.
Coldscales: Emotionless Changelings with an affinity for reptiles.
Hunterheart: Often, but not always, those changelings who have something of the predator about them: wolves, bears, cats, crocodiles, snakes, and birds of prey, but also those who embody the hunter in a more conceptual sense.
Rot Eaters: Changelings who feed off of garbage and other products of decay.
Riddleseeker: Changelings who are noted for especial wisdom or cunning
Runnerswift: Changelings who move like the wind, reflecting hares, rabbits, antelopes and the like.
Skitterskulk: Changelings who have an affinity with flies, spiders, beetles, centipedes, and other creepy crawlies.
Steepscrambler: Changeling who are at home in high places, and who are attuned to such animals as monkeys, raccoons, squirrels, some insects and some lizards.
Swimmerskin: Changelings who draw affinities with aquatic or amphibious creatures: seals, otters, ducks, salmon, and the like; this kith also includes such fantastic life-forms as merfolk, kelpies and so on.
True Friends: Changelings with an affinity to animals kept as pets.
Venombite: Changelings who have an affinity with poisonous creatures, such as spiders and insects or certain reptiles.
Windwing: Changelings who are not confined to the earth, with their hearts in the skies, drawing affinity with birds, butterflies and bats.

Darkling Kiths:
Antiquarian: Those Darklings who surround themselves with dusty tomes of lore and the artifacts of long-dead lands and peoples.
Gravewight: Cold-skined Darklings who draw comfort from the consorting with the dead, both restless and in repose.
Leechfinger: The faeries who steal life from humans, grain by grain, drop by drop, with just a touch.
Lurk Glider: Changelings which glide through the night skies, like the Mothman.
Mirrorskin: Darklings who hide in plain sight from humankind, able to assume any appearance at whim. Their bones are malleable and their faces flow like quicksilver.
Moonborn: Changelings attuned to madness.
Nightsinger: Changelings who can produce hypnotic songs.
Palewraith: Changelings who hide in the shadows.
Razorhand: Changelings who can transform their hands to sharp knives.
Tunnelgrub: Those of the Darkling faeries who slide and slither through tunnels and sewers and chimneys, the better to do terrible things in the night.
Whisperwisp: Changeling who listen silently from the darkness.

Elemental Kiths:
Airtouched: the Elementals of wind, cloud, smoke, and sky, who can be as healthy as a fresh breeze or as pestilent as the miasma that surrounds the dead.
Blightbent: Elementals of pollution.
Earthbones: Changelings who have the mark of earth and stone: lumpen Paracelsian Gnomes, sand spirits, dour men of peat and dwarfs made of mountain granite.
Fireheart: Elementals marked with fire, heat or electricity.
Levenquick: Elementals of lightning and electricity.
Manikin: Changelings who have the character of man-made objects, such as caryatids, mannequins, and other, stranger things, such as enchanted beings powered by clockwork or steam or living bodies made of mercury or glass.
Metalflesh: Metal elementals.
Sandharrowed: Changelings of sand.
Snowskin: The Children of the cold, who can be as powerful as the Arctic ice or as delicate as a snowflake.
Waterborn: Changelings who are imbued with the nature of the waters, soft and brutal, gentle and mighty: undines and nymphs, man-eating river demons, water babies, ladies of the lake.
Woodblood: The children of the plants: Green Men, flower faeries, spirits of mandrake, rose, thorns and all manner of medicinal herbs fair and foul.

Fairest Kiths:
Bright One: changelings who came from light; will-o'-the-wisps, bright elves. White Ladies and other beings of light and fire and ice from all over the world.
Dancer: Those among the Fairest blessed of particular agility and grace, for whom motion is itself beauty and art. Whether entertainer, courtesan, artist or murderer, the Dancer is happiest when moving to the sound of her own rhythm.
Draconic: Changelings who bear within them the blood of dragons or other Great Beasts of Faerie, including celestial bureaucrats and tithe-payers to Satan alike. Haughty and possessing a robust physicality.
Flamesiren: Changelings born of the beauty of fire.
Flowering: Flowers blossom on bare earth where these changelings have stood (although they take months to appear in the human world, rather than seconds as they did in Faerie). Their skin is soft like the petal of a rose or a chrysanthemum and bright with a bloom of health.
Larcenist: Changelings with an natural affinity to pilfer and plunder
Minstrel: Musicians apt at working their trade
Muse: Their beauty inspires the arts. Whether a Romanesque beauty, a sedate and delicate daughter of the Heavenly Ministry, a grotesquely beautiful masqeur garbed in tatters, or a Dark Lady who drives her beloved to destruction, the Muse inspires the creation of things of beauty and honor and love and fear.
Polychromatic: Fairest imbued with the power of the rainbow.
Playmate: Fairest who are good at working together with others
Romancer: Changelings who have become romanticized versions of what they once where
Shadowsoul: The chosen handmaidens and servants of the night, they are the antithesis of the Bright Ones and distant cousins to the Darklings.
Telluric: Celestial Fairest who always know what time it is.
Treasured: Fairest who were literally used as display pieces, spending their durance as statues or similar items.

Ogre Kiths:
Bloodbrute: Pit fighters and gladiators, adept at improvised weaponry.
Corpsegrinder: Eaters of dead flesh.
Cyclopean: The Cyclopeans are like the ancient hunters and herdsmen of legend who sought men for their cooking pots: changelings who resembles Cyclops of Orchaic Greece, the one-legged Fachan of Scots legend, the three-eyed oni of Japan, the elephant-eared rakshas of India or the wind-borne footless Wendigo of North America. Although many are crippled in some way, they have profound senses to make up for it.
Farwalker: Changelings who resembles the abominable men of mystery, the possibly savage hairy creatures of the wilds whose existence straddles the divide between folklore and cryptozoology: the Sasquatch, the yeti, the Russian Alma, the Australian yowie and dozens of other wild men.
Gargantuan: Captures by giants, these changelings had to grow to a greater stature, perhaps being stretched on racks or forced to drink noxious potions. As humans, they appear less freakish.
Gristlegrinder: Man-eaters and gluttons, taking their cue from the English Black Annis, Scottish Red-Caps, or the Rakshas of India, but also sometimes resembling more modern Ogres, such as he masked unstoppable lunatics of slash-and-stalk horror movies.
Render: Changelings who destroy things with their terrible strength.
Stonebones: Changelings who resemble the rocky giants of folklore, Nordic trolls, Native American mountain spirits and the like.
Water-Dweller: Changelings who resemble the legendary water-demons of many cultures, from life-demanding river spirits through to the trolls of coastal caves and under-bridge shadows.
Witchtooth: Old hags of legend.

Wizened Kiths:
Artist: The Wizened who create startling works of art and craft: seamsters, sculptors, painters and builders.
Author: Wizened who are adept at the written word.
Brewer: Changelings who spent their durance in Faerie learning how to create mind-bendingly potent drinks or peculiar alchemies. Due to long exposure and gradual immunity, a Brewer gains resistance to poisons or intoxication.
Chatelaine: Preternaturally skilled manservants, organizers and house-managers.
Chirurgeon: Changelings who master surgery and pharmacy, sometimes from altruism, and sometimes simply because they can, ranging from scary back-street surgeons to strangely alien experimenters.
Drudge: Brownies and housekeepers.
Gameplayer: Adept at riddles and games.
Miner: Kobolds and other tunneling sorts.
Oracle: Changelings who, like many imps and goblins, can, in a limited way, see the future.
Smith: Changelings who were forced to labor under the watchful eye of the most unimpeachable faerie blacksmiths, tinkers and toolmakers.
Soldier: Members of the vast goblin hosts of the Fae, the Soldiers fought strange, inconclusive battles and now find the fighting comes easier to them.
Woodwalker: The Wizened who, like their captors, live within and protect the wilds, sometimes jealously, sometimes violently.



Changelings gather in Courts to protect themselves from the True Fae and other threats. Many Courts draw power from different things, such as the Day Cycle or the Buddhist Cycle of Reincarnation, but here it is the Seasonal Cycle. A Contract gives two new contracts, one based on their season and the other on their emotion. Changelings of a Court draw more Glamour from their Court's emotion, and gain a Court's Mantle to their Fae Mein, representing the season and emotion.

Spring Court (Desire): The Emerald Court rejects the pain and sorrow of their time in Arcadia, drawing power from desire and joie de vivre.

Summer Court (Wrath): The Crimson Court draws power from the anger they bear toward their captors, gathering strength to fight against anyone who would enslave them again.

Autumn Court (Fear): The Ashen Court finds its strength in fae magic, drawing the Glamour they need for their sorcery from the fears of mortals.

Winter Court (Sorrow): The Onyx Court hides under layers of deception like a seed under snow-covered ground, hardening themselves on a diet of midwinter sorrow.